Ze Zhang overwhelms Zhe Li in the opening round match – China Open 2011
In the first round encounter of the two local wildcard entrants, 21-year-old Ze Zhang registered a comprehensive victory over his fellow compatriot, Zhe Li, at the China Open on Tuesday afternoon.
The contest was played on in the outdoor hard court of the Olympic Green Tennis Center in Beijing, People's Republic of China, with the two contestants battling for a place in the second round in front of their home crowd.
Zhang wrapped up the contest in straight sets, 6-1, 6-3, taking just one hour and fourteen minutes to drive Li out of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Tour 500 event. The Chinese dominated over Li every minute
of the contest and displayed some excellent power hitting to record victory in the most authoritative manner.
Zhang dropped merely three points on his serve in the whole matchup, reeling off 24 out of 27 first serve points en route to victory. Li bettered his opponent by securing 26 out of his 43 first serve points in the matchup but utterly
failed to register a single serve break in the entire contest to finish on the losing side in the end.
The 21-year-old Chinese crafted a total of nine break opportunities in the matchup and converted four of them to out play his fellow compatriot in style. Zhang faced two break points from Li but denied him on both occasions to
keep the upper hand in the contest.
The opener witnessed exceptional power hitting from Zhang, who nailed three serve breaks to race away to 6-1 in no time. After bagging the opening set, Zhang never looked back in the game and kept with his momentum to strike his
fourth break point conversion of the day in the fourth game of the following set. He concluded his convincing victory by pocketing the second set 6-3, moving in to the second round of the tournament.
Zhang will either take on the top seeded Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarter-finals of the China Open.
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